Supercomputer Leased for New CSUN Center

Cal State Northridge has leased one of the San Fernando Valley’s first supercomputers, capable of quickly processing immense amounts of data.

The supercomputer, with its 12 billion bytes of memory, is the centerpiece of CSUN’s new Northridge Computational Center, which has formed a partnership with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to pay for half the lease and collaborate with CSUN students and faculty on projects.

Administrators are also negotiating with film studios and plan to use the computer to teach students how to create digital films, special effects and other skills useful in the increasingly high-tech movie industry.

Center director Steven Fitzgerald said the supercomputer will be used by a variety of disciplines, including physics, math, engineering, arts, media and education.

“Anything you can do on a normal computer, the supercomputer will do faster, better, quicker, cleaner,” said Steven Fitzgerald, a computer science professor and the center’s director. A computation that would take a high-end personal computer days or weeks to perform--such as calculating weather patterns or earthquakes--takes only hours or minutes with the supercomputer.

Once reserved to a small niche market of government agencies and large corporations, supercomputers are becoming increasingly common on college campuses.